"You've released the Demon Queen!"

The situation was so surreal Tracy was sure she was still hallucinating; a random man in a monster mask has shown up to scold her for something she didn't understand while her arms were festooned in stray markings. They got in formation and took the shape of Japanese character symbols. Tracy wasn't even sure she touched the magical ancient swords that trapped Orochi, or that she was a descendant of Orochi in the first place. Or that this superstitious hodgepodge of lore was anything but fictitious.

"You leave me no choice," said the masked man in a grave voice. He gripped something that stuck out of his pant leg and pulled.

Tracy gasped when the edge of a katana started to grow from his pocket. The masked man withdrew it and pointed the tip between her eyes, she shielded her fragile head with a blocking hand in the space between her and the blade. Her dark eyes dropped a few tears and she prepared to die. She's cursed, and this man is going to bloody kill her before Orochi could hatch from her gut or something. Tracy didn't want to be sacrificed, she was only a child.

A force that was unseen by her, pushed her down. The blade thrust above her head and chopped away parts of her hair. The pin-straight follicles rained slowly to the floor with their owner fleeing the scene. Tracy's footsteps were duplicated by an accompanying protector who helped her escape. It was her brother who took her to the side and made her hide with him in a secretive corner.

"I can't find our tour group," Jack whimpered.

"Forget that," Tracy said breathlessly, "we have to get out of here."

A shattering vase alerted them to heart-pounding magnitudes; Tracy pressed her hand hard against the mouth of a crying Jack. The masked man was evidently smashing artifacts in his desperate search for the girl with kanji tattoos. He cursed and put up a fuss trying to get his hands on her, waving his sword and cutting through everything that wasn't nailed down. Tracy pinpointed the direction he came from and the direction he was heading. Wherever he was heading, she grabbed Jack and went the opposite way. The brother felt like a rag doll being dragged around but his life possibly depending on his big sister's instincts. If he was able to help her evade a sword going in her brain, then she will be able to keep them safe.

The masked man, wielding his deadly katana, jumped out of the corner. To his dismay, no one was hiding there anymore. He curses some more but continues his search with obsessive tunnel vision. Tracy and Jack could have only escaped down one path, that was the path he explored.

The children were proven faster than him and successfully vanished from his line of vision. They found refuge in the museum's gift shop, where not a single person was present. There was nary a cashier standing behind the counter or browsing customers. Tracy ravaged the counter for a phone when she realized her cellular device was malfunctioning. She pinned down the home button but the screen would only fade to white and disappear to black again. A phone for employees would presumably be in plain sight and yet she spent some time hunting for it.

"Look, free pocky," chuckled Jack.

Tracy looked up and witnessed her brother tearing open a snack box from the selection rack. A pretzel-like cookie was placed at the corner of his mouth like an edible cigar and smiled like a stereotypical Cuban drug dealer.

"You're gonna get us arrested!" Reprimanded Tracy in a sharp whisper.

"Relax, no one's here. That samurai guy killed everybody."

"Don't say things like that; how are we supposed to know for sure?"

"Notice how everybody disappeared once he showed up? Our tour group? The workers?"

"Everybody... but us." Tracy sunk to the floor and hugged her knees close until she was a human ball of hopelessness.

Footsteps knocked on the floor, they could have belonged to two-tons of man by the pressure of the steps. But he was quick, like a heavyweight ninja. They stamped down the stairs of the building in earshot of the terrified siblings. Unlike before, there was no escape. No route they could take to get away from the blood hungry warrior. It was only a matter of time before he has them backed against the wall where he wanted them.

Tracy's hand wandered the ground for any weapon she could use to defend herself and Jack. Her hand found something better; she let her fingers run down an unidentifiable wall unit and was able to tell what it was. Right when the masked man raises his sword in the air, Tracy hit it as hard as humanly possible.

The gift shop was engulfed in seizure-inducing flashes that made their pursuer pause for a moment. He withdrew his armed katana and in its place, took a new item from his person. The white pellets in his palms clanked together as they shuffled like a handful of marbles. They were tossed before Tracy and Jack and created a cloud of clear but opaque smoke, it ate them in its vast belly rendering them blinded. The little ones coughed the noxious fumes from their systems until they were left with sore throats.

When the smoky cloud went away, so has the masked man. So has the gift shop. The fresh air of the natural outdoors blessed their fogged lungs, skies of blue surrounded them instead of high gray ceilings. It wasn't Hokkaido, not how it looked when they last seen at least. Tracy went to check for any wounds on the hand she punched in the glass of the fire alarm with. To her surprise, they writing on her arms became understandable in an instantly. The scripture did not change languages but Tracy somehow could grasp what it said in an abridged fashion.

Fear won't keep you safe from death fear won't keep you safe from death fear won't keep you safe from death

Jack quirked an eyebrow at his sister, who recited it out loud. He took her arm by him to examine it as well, and was too able to recite it in English.

"Tracy, we can read Japanese."

Tracy turned her head from east to west in search of an explanation. All she saw was a valley of grass with nomads traveling up and down it. The strange people wore straw hats as broad as umbrellas, they carried buckets held up by a stick on their backs. No one had clothes like Jack and Tracy's, which the people noticed with judgement.

A nomadic woman pointed at Tracy's hoodie and gossiped in another woman's ear. They clucked about how funny looking it looked, how untraditional it was. One said she must have been a native from China because of how tan she was compared to them.

"She wears the color purple; the color of death," whisper another who was still focused on the subject of her hoodie, "those two could be a morbid bunch. Or murderers."

Not only could Tracy apparently read Japanese, she could understand it just as clearly. And Jack did too - neither wanted this gift however. That man in the blood red oni mask teleported them somewhere they did not comprehend. Where the buildings were simple and formed with brick and the roads were filled with people instead of cars. The technically advancements of Hokkaido were downgraded to crafts little more than ones from the Stone Age. Signs were not lit up in electronic bulbs but carved in wood or engraved in stone.

An evil wind breezed through the siblings' flesh as coldly as ice. Tracy never felt more like a wind chime in the relic that is the strong winds of Ancient Japan. A stallion dashed against it as if it was a light zephyr and was ordered to halt in the wake of Tracy and Jack's appearance. The master was clad in pitch black clothing with no headgear exclusivity a familar horrid mask with high fangs, gaping nostrils and hellish red skin. Before the horse could charge their way, they sprinted away the best their little legs allowed.

Tracy and Jack stopped an elderly village woman from entering her own home. Although they begged their hearts out for shelter from an dark pursuer, she was wary of the strange kanji tattooed child. Jack flashes her with a last resort he held between his fingers like a certificate of freedom. In reality, it was merely one of his Pokemon trading cards. This card was prestigious with its holographic texture and little resistance during schoolyard games.

"Now's not the time!" His sister exclamation.

He ignores her and locked his attention on the woman. "This is an extremely rare valuable in my village. It is worth more than that house you live in. Let us stay here and it is yours."

The house's owner receives the card, examining it with skeptical eyes. Tracy anticipated that she will be offended by the offer, especially since Jack adopted an extremely phony oriental accent that was too offensive even for the Japanese boy to use.

"Bulba...saur?"

Jack finally got his translation but was disappointed by the results. He knew what the name of the character in the card was but hoped for more elaboration. Not to mention the fact that he forgot he could read Japanese anyway. In more important matters, the old lady was ecstatic about his gift. She excepted the trade, believing the hype of the game card's value, and took the two children inside.

The abode was humble to say the least yet had plentiful options for hiding places. Jack took to a cabinet underneath the sink while Tracy stayed hidden in a footlocker. It made her feel like she was in a coffin during a premature funeral. The lips on her face were too frozen to solicit a word as she heard a third visitor break through the door of the house.

His heavy feet creaked the wood panels into submission with every step. He was agonizingly silent otherwise, up until he speaks to the elderly woman.

"I seek a girl with writing on her skin," he said in blunt confidence that she will satisfy his wishes.

She gives him a conniving laugh and leads him to her trunk. He smooths his hands over the cover longingly as soon as she informed him of Tracy's location. Carefully but quickly, he removes it from the rest of the footlocker. A sobbing Tracy was forcefully ripped apart from the hiding spot. Jack came out from his and fearlessly charged the man who was eight times his size. The man knocked the boy onto his backside and said that he had no use for him. Tracy was all he desired.

Tracy was locked away in a wooden operculum of some sorts that was attacked to the braces on the mask man's steed. Villagers gathered to see the girl being stolen by him under unusual circumstances. The horse made his rounds away from the town by the orders of his master. Tracy would never step foot on Ezochi soil again.